Today, fabrication of semiconductor dies or chips commonly includes so-called dicing, i.e. singulation of the individual dies or chips from a substrate, typically a wafer substrate or, short, wafer. For various types of substrates, dicing may be achieved by means of mechanical sawing of the substrate. For some types of substrates such as e.g. silicon carbide (SiC) substrates, though, mechanical sawing of the substrate may be difficult and/or expensive due to the specific mechanical material properties of the substrate material (e.g. SiC). For example, mechanical sawing of the substrate may exhibit a low sawing speed and/or lead to high consumption of sawing blades in this case.
Furthermore, mechanical sawing of the substrate may lead to mechanical sawing damage such as e.g. formation of cracks, which may reach into the substrate and may impair or even destroy chip functionality. Also, mechanical sawing may result in a relatively wide kerf due to a given width of the sawing blade. These effects may be particularly prominent for very small chips, e.g. diodes, where a substantial amount of wafer surface area may be occupied by the kerf, as well as when larger wafer substrate diameters (e.g. diameters of 150 mm (“6 inch”) and beyond) will be processed.